WRONG

To continue in the spirit of wrong-ness, on my way to work my car alerted me that my tire was low. For the third time, in three days. Hooray!

I proceeded to stop at a gas station, hurriedly, as I was already late for work (obviously). I noticed I had no quarters left in my designated “quarter-holder” (cup holder) from my two prior uses of their air pump…in the past three days.

Determined to change my course of wrong-ness, I went inside and kindly asked the lady if she could please turn on the air as I am fresh out of coins, I am late for work, and could-you-please-just-do-it?

She said no. “We don’t have control over that. Sorry.”

(**We all know there is a secret button under the counter, you’re not fooling anyone, Cindy.**)

Before I could speak, the spirit of the aforementioned wrong-ness consumed my body.

I morphed into something that probably resembled…Godzilla. Or Voldemort.

I proceeded to give poor Cindy a death stare that I didn’t even know I was capable of. It was as if she had told me she had killed my cat. Post-death stare, without words, I stomped away from the counter and added an exaggerated eye roll for good measure.

When I got back into my car, I felt myself zap back into my natural state. I was appalled at my behavior.

“Was that Satan? Why was I so mad at her? Did someone else just inhabit my body? Did I just do that over free air?”

It was at this moment that I realized I was PMS’ing. (I don’t know why it took me so long either.)

The Aftermath

I felt terrible; so terrible that I almost called the gas station and asked for Cindy to apologize.

But then I realized that would be weird…and shook it off, hoping as a fellow female she would sense that it was my time of the month and I had little control over my emotions.

My charade in the gas station caused me to run out of time, so I proceeded to the next air pump on my lunch break to finally successfully inflate. Little did I know, my good friend karma had something else in mind.

I was pleased that the store clerk at this gas station turned on the air for me with no problems whatsoever. (He was a man and I meant business, so maybe he was just terrified of me.) I smiled to myself as I skipped back out into the parking lot, thinking “Wow there ARE kind, helpful people in this world.”

I took the pump to my tire. Unfortunately, there was no air in this particular hose, as this was the water hose.

Consequently, I attempted to shoot a jet stream of water into my tire. Unsurprisingly, this did not go well. The result: I was blasted in the face with maybe, no definitely, 2 full cups of water. In broad daylight. At a busy gas station.

Back inside I went. Turns out, the air was not working today. (Does this even surprise you?)

“Oh, still? Man, a guy came yesterday so I figured it was fixed!” OF COURSE YOU DID, TIM. OF COURSE YOU DID.

Annoyed, embarrassed, and dripping wet, I started laughing hysterically. (Unsure whether or not I was crying a little, too). I SO deserved this.

Please someone just give me air

With my ego slightly tarnished, I realized that giving up now would mean that PMS, Cindy AND Tim would win this battle.

So, I got back in my car and drove to ANOTHER gas station (which was difficult because I could barely see out of my soaked sunglasses). Alas, the last gas station of the day had a big sign out front that read:

“FREE AIR, no coins necessary!”

Lesson Learned

I’m still PMS’ing as I write this. BUT, I was reminded that it’s okay if you have a bad moment, bad morning, or bad day and you slip up. We’re human. Karma taught me my lesson. As long as you learn from those lessons and don’t continue to be an asshole, I think you’re off the hook.